One of the most popular quotes on LinkedIn belongs to Richard Branson: “If you look after your staff, they'll look after your customers. It's as simple as that.” Most organisations talk about how important their people are; but whereas they spend millions on their Customer Experience (CX), they only invest the bare minimum in their Employee Experience (EX). With employee engagement rates as low as 20% across the UK, perhaps it’s felt that talk is cheap in relation to caring about employees.
Denise Lee Yohn, author of Fusion: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World's Greatest Companies, says that to be successful, people-related activities should shift from being, "...side-tasks to be delegated to Marketing and HR to fundamental business priorities that deserve your attention and care."
Deloitte defines it as: "A holistic view of life at work, requiring constant feedback, action and monitoring."
In practice, EX is the umbrella term for all people-related activity, as outlined below. To be clear, EX is not next generation employee engagement. Engagement is an outcome; the importance of which has been recognised as in recent years organisations have created dedicated roles and, in some cases, dedicated functions to help boost engagement levels.
What is EX?
The evidence-base
- Included 11.5 times more in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work
- 4.4 times as often in LinkedIn’s North America’s Most In-Demand Employers
- Listed 28 times more often in Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies
- Listed 2 times more often in American Customer Satisfaction Index